The Bronx High School of Science, a New York City high school located near Jerome Park Reservoir in the Bronx, hosts an unique rich biological environment, in the midst of urban life. To better understand this environment, we, a group of five students under the mentorship of Emily Schmidt, Tracy LaGrassa, and Sunny Corrao, initiated a camera trap study inside the campus. The camera trap research program at our school has provided us the opportunity to study the school’s surrounding animal population since June 2021. We are continuing to conduct research and gather data until this fall.
Our group was given eight Wildgame Innovations Terra Extreme Trail Cameras and first, we tested the functionality of the cameras by placing them around a classroom and walking in front of them to trigger them to take pictures. Then we left them in the classroom to pick up movement from other students to see if they would go off when we weren’t intentionally trying to trigger them.
Then, we started our pilot study by choosing locations that would allow us to try and capture the biological diversity that our school offers. These locations include the front courtyard of our school and the student kept garden found in the back. After concluding our pilot study, we received a myriad of different types of data.
So what’s been found so far? Our high school has bustling activity happening all around it which makes it a difficult process trying to find photos of animals, not people. After all, the camera traps take photos of anything that moves including a swinging tree branch or a lawn mower! However grueling the work may be, we have had several photographs taken of animals at their perfect moments. Take for instance these pictures of a monarch butterfly and skunk:
The camera traps have captured a total of 16 determined species in photos (Note: Some animals are unfortunately unable to be identified due to being poorly defined by vague/blurry details). The range spans from birds such as common starlings and house sparrows to mammals including skunks and rabbits. We were able to identify the cameras with a book of common animals around general urban wildlife. Our most recently updated data has shown us that the species found most frequently around the school is the Common Starling, with a whopping 32 encounters across all seven cameras. The most surprising animal that the cameras captured is a Eastern Cottontail Rabbit in the school’s garden. While it was rumored that rabbits could be found there, we did not expect to capture one. To our delight, we did:
It’s charming to think that a school could educate its students on its inside — and outside! Throughout this school year and into the summer, we will be continuing our research and developing independent projects with the greater goal of understanding human and urban wildlife interactions. We hope to see more animals appear in our research, and that we learn much about the things we find.
- Caught on Camera! - April 11, 2022
Interesting to read about the variety of species captured. Great rabbit photo!
Thank you to Sunny Corrao (NYC Parks Department Wildlife Unit) for mentorship of our students, and thanks to the SPARKS team at STEMteachersNYC for collaborating with us and helping us develop this research https://stemteachersnyc.org/sparks/